‘Economic Gap Bodes Ill for U.S.’

Perhaps the most unsettling statistic in the first of your series on “Poverty in America” was the decline, in constant dollars, of the average hourly wage since 1978.

When will our bureaucrats in Washington see that the constant influx of unskilled low-paid workers made possible by our lax immigration laws is having the effect of reducing hourly wages for all Americans.

It is time we shut the floodgate and reduce the supply of low-skilled workers. This would necessarily result in an increased demand for our own unskilled poor, with the unavoidable, but salutary, effect of an increase in their hourly wages.

GORDON J. LOUTTIT

Manhattan Beach